from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

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from the all-play-and-some-work dept

The foam dart arms race continues with the FDL-1, which may be the most fearsome contender yet. It's a high-power, fully-automatic robotic dart launcher that can be configured as a standalone turret or a handheld blaster. But the truly cool part is how it's made: apart from the electronic guts, the entire thing can be produced with most average hobbyist 3D printers with a 6" cube build size (not just high-end professional numbers). All of the schematics, instructions and software is open source and/or Creative Commons ShareAlike, so upon release the FDL-1 will be free and easy for anyone to build and modify. In the mean time, its 3D-printed construction also enables several ways to order one on Kickstarter at different tiers (though the prices of all three are high): as a 3D printing kit that includes components and filament, as an assembly kit with components and pre-printed pieces, or as a fully assembled unit.

Though I'm sure there are plenty of kids who wouldn't mind getting their hands on an FDL-1, it's a pretty advanced project with a price tag of several hundred dollars to boot. In the mean time, there's the Kamibot: a papercraft robot kit designed to teach kids to code. To keep things at a beginner's level, the robot itself is a single pre-made unit based on open source Arduino, with IR and ultrasound sensors, multicolor LEDs, and a single servo in addition to its dual-motor drive. It's wirelessly controllable and, more importantly, highly programmable via a robust drag-and-drop "learn to code" interface. To keep things fun and interesting for kids, it also has a bunch of papercraft templates for building cool-looking skins on top of the robot itself, from tanks to Frankenstein.

"Moving seats" that rise and fall and tilt and sway according to what's on screen were a staple of Universal Studios when I went there as a kid, and if you'd asked me then (or yesterday, for that matter) whether that technology would be coming to the living room anytime soon, I'd probably have dismissed the possibility. Well, the Immersit has shown otherwise: it's a home system that adds motion and vibration feedback for video games to just about any sofa. It works with PC, X-Box and Playstation and is preconfigured to respond to 120+ games, not to mention a whole bunch of movies (it works with plain old video, too). For games, the motion is based on various signals detected from the game, and can be configured at a granular level to change what motions go with what game actions. For movies, the team is using a combination of software and human adjustment to create motion codes for various movies; the Immersit detects the movie being played, and looks up the appropriate motion track. As with all such devices, it has to be tried to be properly evaluated, and I'd be pretty dubious about dropping $700+ on one without doing so — but the reviews from those who've had the chance are so far pretty positive.

from the education-in-the-information-age dept

There's been plenty of discussion online about whether or not kids should be taught "coding" as a core curriculum topic like math and reading. And there's a compelling argument in this technological age that, at least, basic coding concepts are something everyone should know, just to be literate when it comes to many of the key work and life challenges we'll be facing over the next few decades. But perhaps an equally compelling argument could be made for teaching economics. Or statistics. Or maybe even journalism. Or is it just that everyone wants kids to learn the things that they themselves do on a daily basis, because no one else seems to understand them? Maybe we should just teach problem solving. Or common sense. But how do you teach either of those things? And if we're adding new subjects, which ones do we take away? Figuring out the education curriculum for the modern age isn't quite as easy as we originally thought. Hersh, Dennis and I discuss these questions and more in this week's episode.

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Some people claim that they are not "math people" -- that their brains just don't understand mathematics that way "normal" people are supposed to learn it. Perhaps that's true for some, but the subject of math seems to be taught in a way that tends to weed people out as concepts get more abstract. Educators are trying to figure out how to avoid making math lessons as painful as they might have been in the past (and hopefully not create any further torture with "new math" or even "newer new math"). Here are just a few links on changing the way these skills are taught.

from the licensing-insanity dept

A couple years ago, we wrote about the nutty situation in which state regulators for all sorts of industries are really doing more to simply stop competition, rather than any sort of "consumer protection." This is not to say that there isn't a role for regulation in protecting consumers. There may well be, but the more you look at how it works, the more you realize how the system is almost inevitably gamed to be about blocking upstarts and competitors. In the example in that story, we talked about a woman who got in trouble for braiding people's hair without a "cosmetology" license.

Now we've got something happening in California that is even more related to things we're interested in, though no less ridiculous. The California Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) has sent cease-and-desist letters to a bunch of organizations who run "learn to code" events, claiming that they're teaching coding without a license and need to be shut down.

In mid-January, the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) sent cease and desist letters to Hackbright Academy, Hack Reactor, App Academy, Zipfian Academy, and others. General Assembly confirmed that it began working with BPPE several months ago in order to achieve compliance.

BPPE, a unit in the California Department of Consumer Affairs, is arguing that the bootcamps fall under its jurisdiction and are subject to regulation. BPPE is charged with licensing and regulating postsecondary education in California, including academic as well as vocational training programs. It was created in 2010 by the California Private Postsecondary Education Act of 2009, a bill aimed at providing greater oversight of the more than 1,500 postsecondary schools operating in the state.

The intent here may be admirable. There are various scam "post secondary education" offerings that don't really provide anyone anything of value and over promise what they're offering. But coding bootcamps are something else entirely. The various groups are saying they're interested in complying with whatever regulations are necessary, but are also worried about the cost and the time that it will take for this process to run its course. Bureaucracies aren't known for their efficiency (or their inexpensiveness).